Post-Plotnick Packaging Pictures

It seems there are so many wannabe artists out there, all looking for the stylistic edge that will be distinctively "theirs" – their brand, their trademark, their signature style – that, like the parallel evolution of sabre-toothed dentition or bristling defensive spines, even the weirdest novelties will be thrown up independently any number of times. If you have banked heavily on the uniqueness of your own innovations, then the unwelcome discovery of a stranger's footprints all over what you had considered your private turf can induce annoyance, and even paranoid, violent, and litigious thoughts. Alternatively, you can just let it go, and write it off to experience. I'm a porcupine, you're a hedgehog, that weirdo over there is an echidna: let's all get along!

More than a decade ago, I wrote about an instance of this that paralleled my own efforts, in the post Snails in Outer Space. Now I've come across an even more striking example.

You may remember me describing my interest in deconstructing cardboard packaging last year (Cut It Out; hey, listen, a man needs a hobby). It had occurred to me – how could it not? – that these oddly-shaped sheets of card would make an interesting series of surfaces for some visual art, whether as an actual "support" for painting or drawing, or scanned as an element in digital art. So I decided to scan a few, cleaned up the shapes, and then superimposed some digital patterns onto them, just to see how it would look. TBH, it wasn't anywhere near as interesting as I'd hoped, and the whole idea went onto the back burner, along with a dozen other such potential ways of occupying the hours between breakfast and bedtime. Maybe later, maybe not.

So, imagine my surprise when I opened the regular emailed newsletter from Photo-Eye, and saw the announcement of their latest "Showcase" artist, someone called Walter Plotnick (no, really) who – you've guessed it – is using scanned deconstructed cardboard packaging as the canvas for some digital art. My initial flash of annoyance was quickly replaced by amusement, however, when I saw quite how dreadful Plotnick's efforts are (IMHO, obviously, you'll have to follow the link). Not only is his scanning crude – nothing screams "scanner!" louder than those horribly abrupt shadowed edges, and that harsh overall contrast – but his taste for a pointless and superficial retro-surrealism is also, well, pointless and superficial; again, IMHO. The whole thing just reeks of "gimmicky art" to me and, if nothing else, it made me glad I had shelved my own packaging project.

Now, I suppose, this particular graphical real estate has been claimed, post-Plotnick, so – unless I come up with some truly compelling reason to pick it up again – those sheets of card will be going into the recycling bin where they belong. Although I will probably scan a few more first, just in case. Hmm, I'm seeing kimono patterns... And architecture... Or perhaps some parody product packages... But, then again: maybe later, maybe not.